Puce, Chartreuse or Magenta?
by MLaw
Summary: UNCLE headquarters has been scheduled for some renovation, much to the consternation of the employees.


Napoleon Solo would have been willing to make a deal with the devil if it would change what had been decided about renovating headquarters in New York.

Alexander Waverly had apparently authorized the repainting of the entire interior, as it had been long overdue.

The powers that be, in their infinite wisdom that the gunmetal grey walls and doors had to go.

Their plan was to **revive** and beautify the work space by bringing in more cheerful and bright colors that, according to their studies, would improve the atmosphere and increase efficiency.

The painting of the office walls in the space Napoleon shared with Illya was unbeknownst to the Russian who was on a security detail with Waverly to Washington D.C. They would be gone for the week while everything was being being painted.

Solo had been banished to the agent's conference room which was now a strange shade of bluish purple. He along with a number of Section II personnel, and some of the tech support were trying to escape the paint fumes, ladders, buckets of paint and the drop cloths that seemed to be everywhere.

No one was happy about the changes.

"Did you hear they painted Communications pink?" Someone said. "Since most of the specialists are women it was thought the color would appeal to them."

"That's ridiculous and completely sexist," April Dancer complained. "Now a nice bright sunny **yellow** I wouldn't mind, but pink? Blech! I'm so tired of men deciding what women should and shouldn't like. If they had their way I wouldn't have been allowed to become a field agent. I'm more capable than most of the men in Section II."

"You go April," Heather McNabb chimed in. "They just finished painting the Secretary's office an awful shade of magenta."

"Magenta? What the devil is that?" Mark Slate asked.

"It's a well... purplish-red, reddish-purple, purplish-pink, or mauvish-crimson. Oh heck, it looks like hot pink to me, and a little too psychedelic for my taste. I can just imagine what it would look like under a blacklight."

"Who decided these colors,"Mark asked. "I hear the labs were painted baby blue, since the personnel there are mostly men."

"It was the Psychology Department," Napoleon grumbled." One of their bright, head shrinker ideas. I tell you what, Illya is not going to be happy when he sees the color they're painting our office."

"And what's that darling?" April asked.

"It's a hideous shade of deep orange."

"You mean like a rust color?" She asked.

"No, it's _orange, blood orange,_ "

Dancer chuckled, "Yes, given Illya's preferences to black, grey and dark blue that should go over really well. Are you going to warn him before he gets back."

"Nope. I'll just stand to the side and observe the shock effect."

"You can be awfully mean to him sometimes,"she said.

"I'm not doing it to be mean. Why work him up ahead of time and let him build up a full head of steam. It'll be safer if he doesn't know until he walks in through the doors. It'll be a shorter duration of going ballistic."

"Won't reception and the corridors being different colors give him a hint?" Wanda asked. "I mean reception is practically a neon green and quite shocking when you first see it. I heard they're doing the corridors last, overnight. So we won't see what color they are until tomorrow morning."

"Peachy," Napoleon rolled his eyes.

"Actually that's what I heard,"April said. "They're going to be peach."

Napoleon slapped a hand to his brow, shaking his head upon hearing that news.

"I don't know about you all but I'm hungry," Wanda said." It's lunch time, so let's just head to the Commissary."

When they walked through the doors and saw what color the walls had been painted they did an immediate about face and headed back into the still grey corridor.

"I can't eat in there,"April said. "It's nauseating."

They all agreed with her and headed out to the deli across the street for sandwiches. Napoleon had to stay close to headquarters as he was agent in charge during Waverly's absence.

He said nothing about the lovely shade of beige that had been used in the Old Man's conference room; the explanation for that was having a more cheerful neutral color would help Mr, Waverly deal with the day to day stress of running UNCLE Northwest.

The day arrived when Waverly with his escort returned to headquarters. He used his private entrance from the secure parking garage.

As the secret door opened with a quiet whoosh, he stopped where he stood.

"What the deuce? Why the devil is my conference room tan?"

Napoleon was standing there to greet him. "Didn't you authorize headquarters to be repainted sir?"

"I did, but I didn't ask for a different color."

Napoleon pursed his lips. "Then I don't think you're going to be very happy about what's been done elsewhere in the building."

"Mr. Solo I want a full report on the changes; I don't have time to deal with this nonsense as there's a Papal visit that we need to contend with, security arrangements and such. There's riots on the west coast, and an attempted coup by communists in Indonesia has led to the murder of countless innocent lives. The death toll is staggering."

"I'll have that report for you right away sir," Napoleon nodded.

"If you no longer need me Mr. Waverly, I would like to catch up on some paperwork in my office," Illya asked.

"By all means, yes yes. You're dismissed young man,"Waverly waved him off. He had lit his pipe and was already distracted.

As soon as the doors opened, Illya along with Napoleon stepped into the corridor.

"What has been done here? The walls, they are... _peach_?"

"Wait, tovarisch; it gets better."

Once they reached their shared office and the doors opened, as predicted Illya went ballistic.

"I cannot work in this sort of environment. It is much too distracting!" He tossed his briefcase on his desk and that sent several files flying, scattering the papers around the room, creating quite a mess. Illya picked up his typewriter from the floor, and howled his anger.

"They got paint on it! Look it is all over the keys and the typebars. I will have to dismantle the entire thing to clean it!" His nostrils flared the more angry he became.

" _Blyad'!_ " He let go the F-bomb in Russian. Stopping himself from a further outburst, he decided he wanted food. As Napoleon was often quick to remind him, 'food doth soothe the savage Kuryakin,' and right now he need a lot of soothing.

"I am going to get some lunch. Coming?"

"I wouldn't recommend the Commissary, it's not good.

They painted that too...Illya they painted everything."

Napoleon proceeded to fill him on the Psychology Department's new strategy.

"And they think we are the crazy ones," Illya muttered.

Napoleon quickly wrote up a list of the color changes in each area of headquarters, with Illya having to type it up on a machine in the Secretarial Pool. He couldn't get over the walls being hot pink.

Once Waverly received the list he ordered a punishment doled out the members of the Psychology Department for overstepping their bounds. They also received quite a tongue lashing to which they were forbidden to respond.

Firstly, they were required to eat in the Commissary.

Cookie the chef served them split pea soup with ham, while they stared at the walls that were supposedly painted Chartreuse, a color somewhere between yellow and green.

To everyone else who saw it, they claimed it resembled the color of stomach bile.

Not long after being served their soup, one by one the men of the Psych Department excused themselves, making a run to the closest lavatory to be sick.

It took a record four days to repaint all of headquarters back to its original grey. Many offered to pitch in to help as Accounting refused to authorize payment for the job.

The entire Psych team however, was conscripted to do the bulk of the work as part of their punishment.

The work was overseen by Illya Kuryakin...


End file.
